Posts
Resurrecting the Windows Photo Viewer
· ☕ 2 min read
I’ve avoided posting about this for a while mostly because I thought Windows Photo Viewer would get removed. But it’s still there in Windows 10 1909 and it’s still good - even though it doesn’t play animated GIFs and hasn’t been updated since the time of Windows 7. Here’s how to enable it in Windows 10. Enable Windows Photo Viewer To enable Windows Photo Viewer so it shows up as an option to open image file types with, copy and paste the text below as is into a new text file and save it with a “.
In-Place Upgrade to Windows 10 1909 November 2019 Update (19H2) with MDT
· ☕ 7 min read
2019-11-12: Microsoft have confirmed on Twitter that there will be no updated ADK for Windows 10 1909, so keep using ADK 1903 with the fix as noted below. 2019-10-24: At the time of writing there is no ADK for Windows 10 1909 November 2019 Update (19H2), so I’ve tested this walkthrough using the ADK for Windows 10 1903 with the hotfix for Windows System Image Manager. I’ll keep these pages up to date when Windows 10 1909 is officially released.
Quantum Computing Primer
· ☕ 7 min read
Recently I’ve been doing some research into quantum computing; I wanted to understand its current state in 2019 along with where it could be headed in the next few decades. Let me preface this by saying that I’m not a physicist, although I do have a basic understand of quantum mechanics. I would like to take the opportunity here to thank some friends who’ve advised me during the writing of this article.
Bash Bunny Payload: Garfield steals passwords with LaZagne
· ☕ 4 min read
The Bash Bunny is a USB attack platform developed by Hak5 a security research group. It’s a device that looks like a USB memory stick, except it is a small computer running a Debian based Linux OS with a desktop class SSD and a quad core ARM processor. It can be configured to be a HID (Human Interface Device), storage device, serial device and USB based network adaptor in order to carry out automated tasks on a computer.
Elevating Permissions To Disable Windows Defender
· ☕ 2 min read
I’ve been developing a new payload for the Bash Bunny using external tools but a lot of them get flagged by Windows Defender - so I turned my attention to disabling Windows Defender and found some interesting information. I wanted to disable Windows Defender temporarily, just enough time to run the attack and then re-enable it. At most it would be disabled for a few seconds - my aim was to leave as few traces as possible.
Updating "Weird Al" Yankovic's track It's All About The Pentiums
· ☕ 7 min read
I’m a big Weird Al fan, and going through some of his work I came across ‘It’s All About The Pentiums’. If you’re not aware Weird Al Yankovic is a musician and comedian. He writes parodies of popular songs and has been for the last few decades. I thought I could update this track in particular to 2019’s technology without changing the song completely. Just for fun, also I had a lot of coffee this morning.
Bash Bunny Primer
· ☕ 7 min read
The Bash Bunny is a USB attack platform developed by Hak5 a security research group specialising in the development of network/system penetration testing tools and educational content. If you’d like to find out more information, you can find them here: Twitter | YouTube | Hak5.org The Bash Bunny is an excellent pentesting tool. It looks like a chunky USB memory stick, however it’s really a SoC running a quad-core ARM processor running a Debian based Linux OS with a desktop class SSD for storage.
Deploying A Windows 10 1909 November 2019 Update (19H2) Reference Image with MDT
· ☕ 15 min read
2019-11-12: Microsoft have confirmed on Twitter that there will be no updated ADK for Windows 10 1909, so keep using ADK 1903 with the fix as noted below. 2019-10-05: At the time of writing there is no ADK for Windows 10 1909 November 2019 Update (19H2), so I’ve tested this walkthrough using the ADK for Windows 10 1903 with the hotfix for Windows System Image Manager. I’ll keep these pages up to date when Windows 10 1909 is officially released.
Building A Windows 10 1909 November 2019 Update (19H2) Reference Image with MDT
· ☕ 11 min read
2019-11-12: Microsoft have confirmed on Twitter that there will be no updated ADK for Windows 10 1909, so keep using ADK 1903 with the fix as noted below. 2019-10-05: At the time of writing there is no ADK for Windows 10 1909 November 2019 Update (19H2), so I’ve tested this walkthrough using the ADK for Windows 10 1903 with the hotfix for Windows System Image Manager. I’ll keep these pages up to date when Windows 10 1909 is officially released.
Microsoft Teams, Webhooks and You
· ☕ 4 min read
If you use Microsoft Teams you may want to be able to send information from external services. There are many apps that can be added to teams to accomplish this but what if you have an internal system or custom script and you want it’s output to be sent to Teams? Well, there’s an app for that too. You can add the Incoming Webhook app to your Teams instance and configure where and who it should deposit information as.
Network Device Status Monitor (NDSM) Update v2.0
· ☕ 1 min read
Download it from GitHub, the Microsoft TechNet Gallery and the PowerShell Gallery. Big update to Network Device Status Monitor (NDSM) utility. Changes in 2.0 Added Microsoft Teams as an output location using a webhook. Here’s a walkthrough on how to create a webhook for your Teams instance. MS teams is limited to 10 devices. Not sure if it’s a Teams/webhook limit, or my code. Will investigate. Fixed bug where all devices are offline, a phantom device is added to the bottom of the offline list.
User Logon Auditing
· ☕ 1 min read
Here’s a quick and dirty user logon/logoff auditing script that has been helpful in educational institutions. The script is available to download from GitHub. Usage Open the Group Policy Object at the top most level of your domain(s) and add the script to the PowerShell scripts area. On log on, add the -logon parameter, and on log off add the -logoff parameter. Create a hidden share somewhere on your network, and give ‘Authenticated Users’ Full Control share and file permissions.
Managing Windows Updates with Group Policy
· ☕ 12 min read
In this post I’ll walk through how I manage and test the delivery of Windows Updates to all my clients and servers. I’ll also go through how I manage essential servers like Domain Controllers, Hyper-V hosts and I’ll touch on getting started with Cluster-Aware Updating. We’re going to group our machines into Clients and Servers, and then group each of those groups into Ring 1 and Ring 2. If you want, you can create more rings for more control, but generally I find two rings are sufficient.

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